Standards

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

- John Ruskin

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via Cyanide and Happiness

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A unionized public employee, a Tea Party member and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches over and takes 11 cookies and then says to the tea partier, "Watch out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."

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Obama Won't Go to Court Over Defense of Marriage Act

via NationalJournal

President Obama now believes that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will no longer defend the 15-year-old law in federal court, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Symbolically and substantively, his decision represents a major advance for gay rights and presages a significant shift in how the government will handle questions about equality for gays.

In a statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said, “After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the president has concluded that, given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny.”

Holder said that Obama concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, which defines “spouse” as a member of the opposite sex, “fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the president has instructed the department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the president’s determination.”

[read on...]

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'bout damn time we got over that DOMA crap.

wildcoyote

All bombed out.

Today's post was going to be about a very exciting little strepsirhine primate, the slow loris. In the face of nuclear armament, however, it will simply have to wait until tomorrow. *sigh*

So, it would seem like all of the issues up for discussion today have a good side and a bad side. Let's start with an issue that has largely fallen out of public favor these last few weeks:

First lady on health care: 'Doing nothing ... not an option' 
via CNN.com (for the full article, click the link above!)

"We don't have a choice," the first lady told CNN's Larry King in an interview that aired Tuesday night.

"When we look at these statistics, we're spending billions of dollars on preventable diseases, and new health care legislation could go a long way to improving prevention, first and foremost."

She addressed the need for people to have access to specialists such as pediatricians who can gather critical information and track it.

"So we have to get this done and I'm hopeful that Congress will come together, that the American people will recognize that doing nothing is absolutely not an option."

At least she's still confident in lawmakers' ability to enact effective, efficient health care policy. The rest of us aren't so sure--especially after that horrid Stupak Amendment.

But she is right: doing nothing is not an option. Everyone deserves affordable health care. Everyone.

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An update on the positively scandalous affair that is the Prop 8 Trial:

Judge Overseeing Prop 8 Trial is Gay (*yays!*)
 via American_Asylum

It would appear as though Judge Vaughn Walker (I knew I liked him...) has been outed from his closet. Which is a two-edged sword, really; it certainly isn't fair for this man's private, personal life to receive such celebrity and publicity, regardless of what it may mean in lieu of his ruling. This from TheKnightWhoSaidNi:

 Before you get all excited, though, keep in mind that this district judge – Vaughn Walker - is a closet-case who has only been outed through media speculation and annonymous sources. Also, he has made homophobic rulings in the past.

It’s unclear whether or not he’ll rule in favor of or against Prop 8. If he rules against it, it’s a victory for us, but the opponents will now almost certainly appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they’ll make an issue of the judge’s homosexuality, claiming that it’s a conflict of interest.

Given that the nation’s Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations have personhood, at least when it comes to political campaign contributions, they might just be stupid enough to get railroaded by a petty complaint about Judge Vaughn Walker.

 Here, here!

more on this article @ PinkNews

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and last, but certainly not least...

Nuclear Armament:  

mankind's most depressing innovation

or,

Why atomic weaponry scares me shitless.

Let's examine the issue, most recently brought into media, political, and public focus by:

Iran to begin enriching its stockpile of uraniumvia NYTimes.com

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency on Monday that it would begin enriching its stockpile of uranium for use in a medical reactor, prompting officials from the United States, France and Russia to call for stronger sanctions against Tehran.

Late Monday in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that it had received a letter from Iran declaring its intent to begin enriching uranium up to 20 percent.

If Russia does join the other world powers in backing President Obama’s call for tougher United Nations sanctions, that would isolate China, which has said such action could make finding a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis even more difficult.

The United States has begun circulating ideas for possible sanctions among its closest allies on the Security Council and is hoping that Iran’s announcement might convince China that Tehran’s real purpose is to create a weapon, and not the civilian use of nuclear energy.

 Well, that should sit well with the UN. And Obama. NOT.

“We have bent over backwards to say to the Islamic Republic of Iran that we are willing to have a constructive conversation about how they can align themselves with international norms and rules and re-enter as full members of the international community,” President Obama said in a news conference on Tuesday. “They have made their choice so far.”

The United States, Mr. Obama said, will be working on “developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole.”

The goal would be to increase the cost for those who do business with Iran so much that they would cut off ties.

French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, (France currently holds the position of Security Council chair) has been aggressive in pushing for new sanctions, especially in the energy sector, according to American and European officials.

So what's our solution? Keep reading:

U.S. ready to offer Iran alternative to nuclear plan
via CNN.com

In what appears to be an attempt to call Iran's bluff on its nuclear program, the United States is poised to offer Tehran a way to obtain medical isotopes that Iran says it desperately needs to treat cancer patients, according to the State Department.

The United States, along with "other countries," will present a new proposal to the International Atomic Energy Agency to provide Iran with those isotopes, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday.

"Our point is, if Iran feels it has a specific need, we are willing to engage constructively and try to identify ways in which the international community and potentially the United States can meet that need," Crowley said.

 This is all well and good, except that the UNITED STATES STILL POSSESSES A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF NUCLEAR CAPABILITY. Including weaponry. So, who are we to decide who can and who can't participate in nuclear development?

Why only Western European nations? When N. Korea, China, Russia, and Iran express intent to develop or possible stockpiles of nuclear technology, the rest of the world (by which I mean the privileged elite controlling the United Nations) has a conniption. And rightly so, honestly, although WE certainly are not offering up any plans to disassemble or stop developing our own arsenals, are we...?

However, I do respect Obama's intentions. I respect that at my age, he was writing about the necessity of nuclear disarmament, and a vision in which the world was free of the threat of nuclear and atomic warfare.

Twenty-six years later, the author, in his new job as president of the United States, has begun pushing for new global rules, treaties and alliances that he insists can establish a nuclear-free world.

“I’m not naïve,” President Obama told a cheering throng in Prague this spring. “This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence.”

Yet no previous American president has set out a step-by-step agenda for the eventual elimination of nuclear arms. 

(via NYTimes.com)


For a real--and very much disturbing--understanding of the horrors of nuclear and atomic warfare, check out this book:

The Last Train From Hiroshima

 by Charles Pellegrino

 From the NYTimes:

The term “ground zero” originated with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who survived up-close encounters with these new American bombs did so thanks to sheer, blind good fortune. They were in exactly the right place at the right time, sheltered from the gamma and infrared death rays, and then from the flattening blast, in spots that acted as natural shock cocoons.


The Hiroshima survivors learned invaluable lessons about surviving a nuclear detonation, but they were discouraged from disseminating this knowledge in the immediate aftermath. Japan’s military leaders did not want to spread “bad stories” and “rumors of defeat.” Some of these survivors talked anyway. They surely saved some lives.


The Japanese called the atom bomb the pika-don, the “flash-bang.” One lesson about it was this: If you see and survive the pika, you have a few seconds to duck. The don is on its way. Another lesson: wearing white helps. One doctor, Mr. Pellegrino writes, “reported numerous instances of women and children wearing patterned clothing, sometimes displaying flowers on white cloth. The dark flowers were now branded permanently onto their skin.” 

The atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945

Yet another lesson: the sound of a B-29 bomber diving and flying like hell, straining its engines to get out of the way, is a sound to take seriously.


Many, many other things were still to be learned about these bombs, each worse than the next. People who wore wristwatches were branded where the metal met their skin, and quickly developed radiation sickness. The bombs acted like a microwave oven, heating metal until it glowed.


Many people reported that the smell of burning human flesh was “quite similar to the scent of squid when it was grilled over hot coals,” Mr. Pellegrino writes, “with a few pieces of sweet pork thrown alongside.” And then of course were the lingering horrors of what the Japanese called “atomic bomb disease.”


“The Last Train From Hiroshima” is a clear-eyed catalog of every such horror, and not for the weak-stomached. Mr. Pellegrino follows his survivors as they trudge through wastelands that make “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy read like “Goodnight, Moon.” He describes the so-called “ant-walking alligators” that the survivors saw everywhere, men and women who “were now eyeless and faceless — with their heads transformed into blackened alligator hides displaying red holes, indicating mouths.”


The author continues: “The alligator people did not scream. Their mouths could not form the sounds. The noise they made was worse than screaming. They uttered a continuous murmur — like locusts on a midsummer night. One man, staggering on charred stumps of legs, was carrying a dead baby upside down.”

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Among the worst tragedies of America's brutal, bloody history, the bombings are to date the ONLY attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare, killing nearly 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day.

The point I hope you take away from today's post:

NUCLEAR WEAPONS SUCK.

And no one should have them.

Period.

wildcoyote

Issues

Today's post is going to focus on current social and political issues; it will also include a daily quote and a beautiful man. Let's begin with a few of my favorite quotes from Obama's State of the Union addy last week:

"We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again. That is why, even as it cuts back on the programs we don’t need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education."

WIN! Sustainable energy is where it's at, baby!


"I know there are people who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence for climate change..."

...he also knows that they're friggin' tards, and he's going to go ahead making sensible global climate policy anyway. :D


"Democrats: We have the largest majority in decades. People expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills."

Liberals unite!


"Even as we prosecute two wars, we are also confronting perhaps the greatest danger to the American people – the threat of nuclear weapons. I have embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan through a strategy that reverses the spread of these weapons, and seeks a world without them. To reduce our stockpiles and launchers, while ensuring our deterrent, the United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades. And at April's Nuclear Security Summit, we will bring forty-four nations together behind a clear goal: securing all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years, so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists."

Or you know, fall into the hands of ANYONE. Nuclear weapons are the worst invention man has yet to devise; it IS absolutely the greatest danger to Americans, humanity, and all life on planet Earth.


"This budget builds on these reforms. It includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It’s a commitment that’s paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue."

System = Inefficient + Unaffordable. Solution = Non-existent. Let's put your money where your mouth is, Mr. President.


"We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it.

We must continually renew this promise. My administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate."

This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are."

BOUT DAMN TIME. (I will elaborate on this subject below!)


"And let's tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years –- and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no... one should go broke because they chose to go to college."

Meanwhile, we rack up thousands of dollars in debt to pay for college... as we desperately hope that maybe 1/10th of these programs will get jostled around through the bipartisan cluster-fuck known as the United States bureaucracy, and make it through looking even REMOTELY like what it did when it went in.

I plan on narrowly escaping to Canada to evade my unpaid obligations... EX-PAT ALL THE WAY!

"But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary."

"In words and deeds, we are showing the world that a new era of engagement has begun. For we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America. We cannot shun the negotiating table, nor ignore the foes or forces that could do us harm. We are instead called to move forward with the sense of confidence and candor that serious times demand."

I am finally excited about to be a part of a country I can be proud of, if at least in our intentions, values, and genuine effort. Let's make this beautiful dream an American reality!

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That speech was certainly a figment of magnificence. A few things to go along with it:

Pentagon plan on 'don't ask, don't tell' ready for Congress

 from CNN.com

 Defense Secretary Robert Gates will unveil the Pentagon's plan to prepare for repealing the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" law regarding gay soldiers at a committee hearing Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Gates will discuss options for more "humanely" implementing the current ban, for example, according to a senior Pentagon official. The secretary asked his general counsel's office for options six months ago including how to possibly not expel personnel whose homosexuality is revealed by third parties, the source said.

"As a nation built on the principal of equality, we should recognize and welcome change that will build a stronger more cohesive military," said Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

U.S. Economy Grew at Fastest Pace in 6 Years Last Quarter
from NYTimes.com:

The United States economy grew at its fastest pace in more than six years at the end of 2009, even as businesses resisted hiring and continued to do more with less.

The broadest measure of economic activity, gross domestic product, expanded at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter, after a 2.2 percent increase the previous quarter.

The economy grew at an annualized rate of 5.7% in the quarter, faster than expected, but economists still worried about the sluggish job market.

and of course, what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't bring up Scott Roeder's trial?

Talks With District Attorney Nola Foulston on the Scott Roeder Trial and Verdict

from CNN.com

A record verdict, taking only 37 minutes, was pronounced by a unanimous jury that Scott Roeder was guilty of premeditated murder and terrorism.

I really like what the prosecutor had to say, and I wish I could embed the video. Click the link above to redirect to the CNN.com video of this interview. Here's an excerpt:

"There was an elephant in the room. And it was our position that you couldn't really try the case, although it was not actually about the nature of abortion or abortion procedures, that abortion was one of the underlying reasons, is the reason that George Tiller was killed. And as a consequence we needed only to bring in that information that would go ahead and lead to motive. It has been a very divisive issue in our country, and people are still in great conflict. But truly, this was not about a woman's right to choose. This was really about Scott Roeder's choices, and the choices that he made."

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Well, at least it looks like we're getting somewhere. It's a start, people. It's a start. :)

wildcoyote